Staging Modern American Life - (What Is Theatre?) by T Fahy (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The theatrical works of Millay, Cummings, and Dos Passos, which have largely been marginalized in discussions of theater history and literary scholarship, offer a hybrid theater that integrates the popular with the formal, the mainstream with the experimental. Fahy examines the integration of and challenges to popular culture found in their works and offers new readings with an eye to American cultural studies and the impact of mass entertainment on modern life"--

Book Synopsis

Thomas Fahy examines the integration of and challenges to popular culture found in the theatrical works of Millay, Cummings, and Dos Passos, which have largely been marginalized in discussions of theatre history and literary studies, despite offering a hybrid theatre that integrates popular with formal, and mainstream with experimental

Review Quotes

"An intelligent, extremely well written study, Fahy's text expands our knowledge of the subject. He enables us to understand better the non-realistic (expressionist, maybe even post-modern) theater in America as well as to understand the writers themselves." - Townsend Ludington, author of John Dos Passos: A Twentieth-Century Odyssey and The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries of John Dos Passos"As Fahy points out, these plays and playwrights have been marginalized by readers and scholars alike. Nevertheless, Fahy proves how relevant these works are; all of these artists challenged contemporary perceptions of class, race, and sexuality. Fahy s insights are extremely perceptive, and he is not only influenced by famous critics, such as Bahktin, Cohn, Foucault, Pizer, and Nicoll, but also by major new authorities such as Bay-Cheng, Kasson, Ludington, and Wagner-Martin. A fine contribution to literary scholarship." - Kimball King, Professor Emeritus of English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

About the Author

THOMAS FAHY Director of the American Studies Program and Associate Professor of English at Long Island University, USA.